Mark Povinelli caught up with Reel Movie News to talk about his most recent project, Water for Elephants, which opens in theaters this Friday, April 22.
He plays Kinko, who befriends Robert Pattinson's character, Jacob.
Talk to me about your role in Water for Elephants, and why you were drawn to that project.
I play Kinko, who’s real name is Walter, and he is the reluctant roommate of Robert Pattinson’s character Jacob. When Jacob rides on the train, August throws him into Kinko’s tiny little box car as his roommate. Kinko is rather gruff and unfriendly individual. Throughout the course of events through the movie, Jacob wins him over and Kinko ends up becoming one of his biggest allies in a world that Jacob has very few allies in.
How was it working with Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon as costars?
I didn’t know a lot of Rob’s stuff, but I was aware of him. I’d seen the Harry Potter movies but I hadn’t seen any of Twilight films. He was a name to me, and not really somebody I could closely identify with. When I went in to work with him, I was like ‘who is this guy?’ When I started to understand the Rob fascination, it turns out that Rob is a really down to earth, sweet, kind of silly, very bright young man. That was the thing that surprised me the most. I thought of him as a Tiger Beat, Teen Beat matinee idol, when actually in this film he’s a leading man. He’s a rugged leading man with still a sweet boyish face that can really carry a film. He carries two hours of this epic story on his back and I think he carries it off beautifully. One of the charming things about Rob is that when we’re not filming, often times he’s off reading a book and he’s very well read. He understood so much about the depression era in America, so much about circuses. He would reference old movies and old pictures he’d seen and done research on. He’s not just ‘what movie am I doing next?’, he really dives into a role and I think he’s an actor. He does his work and research and he comes prepared.
I was intimated by Reese. I’ve been a fan of Reese’s forever. She’s been a huge star for so long, so I knew her work so well that I was intimidated to work with her. Rob and I had done some rehearsals, but Reese, the first time I’d met her was the first day of filming. The first shot on the first day was Reese, Rob and I filming, and I thought ‘great, cant we do something a little less intense? Can we do a wide shot with an elephant or something?’ [laughs] I got thrown right in there and what was great about Reese was that she made me feel at ease right away. When the camera came on and we started working, she was such a giving actress. If the camera was on me, she was on the other side of the camera working just as hard as if the camera was on her, and really trying to make me look as good as I can. You want that from another actor, but you don’t always expect it from actors that have such a high level as her. She could have been somebody you’d never heard of before or a superstar, it didn’t matter to her. She was an actor working with another actor, and that was really refreshing and wonderful. It immediately put me at ease for the rest of shooting, frankly. The reputation I’d heard about Reese was that she was professional and that she expects professionalism from everyone else around her. While that’s true, as soon as we started working together and seeing that we were professionals, she could not have been more pleasant or warmer. I appreciated the fact that she appreciates that people are there to do the work. You can tell, in her, from the moment you walk on set that she’s there to give her all and give her best performance.
People are saying this is Rob’s real breakout role. It would be great to see ‘Academy-award winning actor’ before his name as well.
I think at some point it’s going to be there, whether it’s for this or not, he’s got the chops to be able to be that guy at some point. It’s a matter of when, not if. The thing about this film, is that Rob is this film, in the sense that it is completely told from his characters prospective. He’s in every shot of every scene and knowing that, we knew that he was going to make or break this film. I really do, honestly, think he makes it. He looks fantastic, to no ones surprised, but he carries himself and is so committed to the character. He’s on screen with Reese and Christoph and he absolutely holds his own and totally delivers. Everyone has this big question of can he do this, and he’s got this big target on his forehead. He can, and he did.
I only posted the excerpts pertaining to Rob. You can read the interview in its entirety at
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